Training all of your staff about spinal decompression and how it can benefit your patients,  is critical to the success of your decompression marketing.  If someone called or came into your office and asked; “What is Spinal Decompression?” would your staff know what to say?   No one expects your staff to know everything about decompression, but knowing the basics builds confidence not only in your staff, but in the patients too.

It would probably be beneficial for you and your staff to have a few short meetings in order to go over the basics of spinal decompression.  One might assume that if a person works in a chiropractic office, they would know a lot about the human spine.  This is not true, the chiropractor knows a lot about the human spine, but unless your staff is in or has completed chiropractic school or human anatomy, they’re probably not going to more than basic biology and of course what they’ve picked up from working in a chiropractic office.

For the first training session, you could explain and have some literature showing  how the spine is made up of cushioned vertebrae called discs and the vertebral bones. Herniated or bulging discs are formed when the pressure causes severe pain due to vertebrae being compressed. Explain how one solution is to use spinal decompression to correct the problem. When a negative pressure is created between the vertebra, the discs are forced to move back into place and this process is called spinal decompression. When this occurs the oxygen and blood flow increases and there is more space between the vertebrae. This will put a person’s alignment back into place which reduces the pressure that occurs on the discs.  This might be a good time to allow on or more of your staff to be placed on the decompression table, so they can get first hand experience with how it feels.

The second meeting can be a recap with a short Q & A period then onto the next lesson that will explain how spinal decompression is a procedure that’s considered non-surgical and non-invasive and is a recommended for those with certain types of chronic back pain. Herniated discs are the most common types of problems that are treated with this method. Spinal compression is what causes the disc to herniate which then causes the spinal nerve roots to have more pressure on them. One of best ways to fix this is to relieve the pressure that a herniated disc causes. Explain how the goal is to have the bulge to decrease and shrink back to its original size and the spinal decompression procedure helps make this happen.

The third a final meeting can include the learning of scripted questions for the phone appointments and some role play.

Now that you have the staff ready to address questions, handle setting the decompression appointments and set a patient at ease when they come in for their initial exam, it’s time to begin your spinal decompression marketing outside of the office.

Place your spinal decompression ad in the paper with an offer that encourages the reader to pick up the phone today to see if they are a candidate for spinal decompression therapy.  From the minute a new patient picks up the phone and makes that call, you and your staff have only a few minutes to set the decompression marketing wheels in motion.   This is why it is important for your staff to be ready with a set of questions to ask the caller.  When a member of your staff answers that phone they should be in complete control of the call. It is always good to begin the call by asking something like; “how did you hear about our office?”  then move into a short script of questions, an interview,  that will allow your staff to assess if this patient would be a candidate for spinal decompression.

 

 

 

 

 

Chiropractors, like any other business person, rely on customers (patients) to make a living, specifically a continuous flow of new patients. First and foremost they decide to become a chiropractor to help people and to offer an alternative to the traditional medical mindset. Many chiropractors have added spinal decompression therapy into their practices, thus further expanding the choices for patients facing possible surgery for herniated discs.

Getting the news about this technology out into the community has not always been an easy task. In the past decompression marketing materials were limited to free reports, lead generation strategies and discovery seminars.

Outdated marketing techniques that were pushy, useless and costly, not only to the bottom line, sometimes a reputation suffered too. So while some decompression practices where maintaining and keeping their head above water, others were sinking. Tables sat empty and returns on investments became a fading dream.

It is said that chiropractic helps patients get their life back and essentially helps them “get back to life”. That being the case then decompression marketing helps chiropractors get their practice back so they can “get back to their practice”…which of course is helping patients achieve and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.
Decompression marketing is specifically for chiropractors with spinal decompression tables, delivering reliable and consistent strategies to market their practices and decompression marketing tools that had been tested and proven to work.

When looking for a decompression marketing system for your practice, consider these four key components;

Niche Advertising- Look to see if the advertising is specific to spinal decompression, written to connect patient with doctor, complete with headlines and professional photos with captions. Using this type of print advertising in newspapers, magazines, flyers, postcards or on your website, will help generate the new patients you need to build your decompression practice.

Coaching and Mentoring – Does it offer access and availability to ask the questions you seek answers to? Your ideas and questions worthy of someone’s attention. You will want to have access to present your questions, receive the answers and also learn other marketing strategies you’ve always wanted to ask an expert about and get those answered by a person.

Workshops – How about online workshops? Webinars that are attended by other decompression doctors, brainstorming or hashing it out…so to speak. Sharing what works and what doesn’t and ending with a Q & A session where can ask anything you want of anyone, including a personal marketing coach. Look for a program that offers workshops online so you can access from the comfort of your office or home, without closing the office, re arranging appointments, packing, travel, hotels or other expenses.

Area Exclusive – Another thing to consider would be area exclusivity. By closing off a geographic area surrounding your practice, you could rest assured that you will be the only doctor that would have access to the decompression marketing system that you’ve chosen. Look for a system that guarantees that you would be the only one in your area receiving one to one coaching and web-networking with your industry contemporaries, by securing a radius of zip codes.
Chiropractors who offer spinal decompression therapy need a system that is dedicated to helping chiropractors achieve the success and profits they deserve, decompression marketing could revolutionize the spinal decompression industry, thus providing the public with access to services that will result in a pain free life without drugs or surgery.

Have you thought about how you will market your practice and all the services you offer, in the New Year? A hotly debated subject these days is “what way is the best way to spend your Decompression Marketing dollars?”

Some believe print advertising is still the way to go. Some think that the way to market in this age of technology is to utilize the internet and all of its bells and whistles, others are of the opinion that it’s who you know and feel that social networking will accomplish more than anything. I believe it’s a little bit of all of that and more.

Decompression Marketing is seen and heard everywhere; radio, television, newspaper and various forms of print media. And now, you can find chiropractors marketing on facebook, twitter and YouTube. So here’s my thought, you want to be found…then make yourself visible.

I don’t know if I’d be so quick to believe that you can rely on social media for all your Decompression Marketing and that it will all be free. While reading some blogs recently I saw that the writer said that social networking is free. Well yes it is free, but what are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to rack up more friends and followers or are you wishing to get new patients in the door? I understand the viral marketing is the next biggest thing, but regardless of how many people follow you or spread your name around, followers don’t pay the bills. Even with a facebook fan page you still have to promote it. Web 2.0 is all the rage I agree, but people do still read the newspaper and watch television contrary to what is being said.

As far as being free; unless you understand how to “work” the social media angle, you will probably have to pay someone to get the ball rolling and keep it rolling.

Speaking of rolling, all the Decompression Marketing in the world won’t help you if you’re not consistently marketing. One ad in the paper might yield you many new patients, but do you stop marketing after one ad is placed? No! and if that attempt was futile, do you give up? No!

Your Decompression Marketing in 2012 will need to be a well thought out plan. I’ll let you decide which type of marketing mix you need. Your budget, your practice, your marketing and your demographics are different from another chiropractor. So where as you might be in an area where newspapers are still widely read, chiropractic advertising with print marketing might be your most used source of marketing and the social media marketing might be the least utilized form of marketing, and online marketing with a website or landing page mingling in the middle of the mix.

As far as being consistent; I’m not sure why anyone would need to address this topic with a chiropractor, because a chiropractor’s philosophy and advice to their patients is the importance of being consistent.

But it’s worth your time and mine and can be summed up with this quote from the late Claude Pepper;
“Life is like riding a bicycle: you don’t fall off unless you stop pedaling. “

So simple!

The same is true with your Decompression Marketing! So keep pedaling!

If you are a chiropractor that has a spinal decompression practice are you currently considering decompression marketing for your practice?

Have you considered investing in decompression marketing program that is devoted to generating new spinal decompression patients?

Do those sound like stupid questions?  They are only stupid if you haven’t considered them.  Here’s why, when you bought the spinal decompression table for your practice I would imagine you intended to use it to help patients return to optimal health and provide a non-invasive option to surgery.  Not to just sit in your office gathering dust or just to generate curiosity amongst your current patients.

Last time I checked optimal health was necessary when wanting to live an active lifestyle and not be burdened with continuous back pain caused by degenerative discs or herniation of one or more vertebrae.

Okay, I get it…you are a chiropractor not a marketing guru.  But you’ve got to let the people know what services you offer and why they need those services.

You’re the chiropractor, people need to know why their lower back hurts all the time how it might have gotten to the point of crawling on all fours to get to the bathroom.  Most likely they have injured themselves in some way while working, lifting improperly, yard work or possibly a sports injury.  But there’s more and you know some things they don’t know.

Studies show that sometimes an injury does not need to occur in order for someone to have a herniated disc. Believe it or not poor posture has highly attributed to the growing population of back pain sufferers.

Others include the mattress we sleep on 6 to 8 hours a night and the wrong shoes.  When you consider the things that people could do to keep their backs healthy, it makes you wonder why more people are not more pro active in the health of their spine.

I believe lack of education and just good old fashion vanity and stubbornness are a few of the reasons.  I for one don’t ever remember someone telling me to sit up straight or sit correctly because if not it was going to ruin my spine. It was more like, “sit up straight, you look like a vulture”.

Now the mattress selection is not always the fault of a child when they are at the mercy of parents providing the proper mattress for their young spine.  But once they are responsible for securing their own bedding, a supportive mattress should be a priority.  Buy a good firm mattress and don’t forget a good supportive cervical pillow.

And the shoes, seriously…ladies do we have to go there?  Five inch heels? Really is that necessary?

Yes, I believe that if the things just mentioned were addressed more seriously, then this type of decompression marketing would not be needed. I’m talking about the kind of marketing where you explain to people why they hurt so bad and what they did to get to where they are, you know…needing spinal decompression.

But it is needed therefore it is nice to know that there is a smart choice available to help for those who suffer from back pain and it’s called spinal decompression.

Chiropractors ask the same questions regardless of where they practice, United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and beyond, they all want to know; “What can be done to bring in a steady flow of new patients?”  “What steps can be taken to target more people, telling them about the services offered?”   “How does all this work without blowing the budget yet receive the best return on investment?”   If a doctor offers a special service, like spinal decompression, the questions get a bit more specific; “How do I bring in new decompression patients?”  “How to collect the case fees for decompression?”

It doesn’t matter if the practice is strictly manual spinal adjustments only, light physical therapy along with adjustments, a decompression practice or how successful the practice is. A chiropractor might see 600 to 700 patients a week; another might see 60 to 70 patients a week.  The questions are the same and they all want to see an increase of new patients because even if a chiropractor sees 10 times more than another, he or she knows that a continuous flow of new patients is the nourishment that promotes the growth of the practice.  Therefore, how to generate more quality new patients seems to be the most asked question of most chiropractic marketing experts.

In a perfect world a chiropractor who opens a practice would have a marketing expert hidden under the desk so that whenever the doctor had a question, the “all knowing” guru could be consulted.   Although that might sound really funny, the truth is we all wish we had someone to turn to at anytime and ask marketing questions.  Adding more services and specialized equipment into an existing practice with the intention of generating more income has created a more defined niches in the marketing world but created some stumbling blocks for chiropractors trying to tap into a new type of patient, the decompression patient.

Spinal decompression is not new to the chiropractic world in fact we first began to hear about decompression in the late 90’s.  Thankfully many chiropractors, who heard about this technology, embraced it in its infancy and brought decompression therapy into their practices.  These were not minor investments as the cost range of a decompression table is wide, but still run in the thousands of dollars.  Risky?  Yes; but I applaud those that took that risk.  Along with the new equipment comes a mirage of questions.  Training the staff is necessary and then there is coding and billing questions.   Where does a chiropractor go to find answers to all of the questions that will come with the new acquisition? How does the doctor get this new information out into the community so the table can begin to make money for the practice?

Now more than ever chiropractors need a decompression marketing coach who can answer questions about decompression and supply decompression marketing materials and because of this shift towards a more defined type of marketing many chiropractors are seeing higher success rates and with high quality patients.

Having a website is a vital way of establishing an online presence for the purpose of chiropractic marketing. The idea is to get people to come on to your site and you explain to them why chiropractic treatment is necessary for good health and why they need to choose you above all other qualified practitioners. The point of decompression marketing is to sell your service. You know it and the customer knows it, so why is the subject of price such a tricky one?

There are people who are loathe to mention the price of their services at all when chiropractic marketing. Their hope is that prospects ring them up and ask but this is not the way to go about it. Consumers like to see prices so that they can compare and contrast with other businesses. If you believe that your service is worth the cost, don’t worry about it and proudly state all the benefits of your expertise so that the price doesn’t matter.

Be Patient

One common chiropractic marketing mistake that is made however is introducing the price too soon. Under no circumstances must you mention the cost of your services until the benefits have been presented. Writing a single introductory paragraph before announcing that you charge $50 a session will see the majority of people leave the page before reading another word. On its own, $50 for one chiropractic session may seem steep.

Great spinal decompression marketing copy introduces the price near the end of the page and only after explaining all the wonderful benefits. By the time the reader has finished, the price is rendered irrelevant. Once they have heard about the healing properties of chiropractic sessions, how they can move freely and without pain for the first time in years, $50 a session will seem like a bargain.

Favorable Comparisons

Another handy chiropractic marketing technique is comparing the price to an everyday purchase. You can mention that $50 is less than the price of a meal for two in a restaurant which is eaten then forgotten while the chiropractic session will make them feel incredible for weeks. You can go one step further and compare to an everyday purchase. If you recommend a session every 2 weeks for example, mention that this is less than $4 a day, equivalent to a latte and croissant.

The key is to make the price a secondary concern. If a prospect is allowed to critically think about an offer, he may decide against it. By comparing a potentially life-changing sequence of appointments with mundane things, you cause the prospect to feel guilty about wasting money on silly things when something unique and substantial is available for around the same price.

Chiropractic marketing should always involve showing the full benefits of your services first before adding the price but you must always mention the price eventually. If your services are genuinely good and you hire a high quality copywriter, there should be no issues when it comes to price. Never feel as if you have to lower the price to compete. Although money is important, rational people know that their health outweighs their wallet.

Movie trailers have become a staple in the movie going experience.  While most people use television commercials as opportunities to grab a snack, check an email or go to the bathroom, it seems a large number of movie goers including myself, would not dare miss the previews of new movies that will be released or “coming soon” to a theater near you.

I would assume that most people don’t even consider a movie trailer as a form of advertising, but it is and further more it is marketing at its finest.   High tech graphics, make-up, lighting and sound, all part of the movie industry, provide everything needed to stir an emotion, incite action and entice the person watching to mentally take note of the movie’s opening date.

When a chiropractor adds a spinal decompression table to his or her practice, the service it will provide for patients, will need to be advertised and marketed to the public or else the table becomes a nice conversation piece for the office.

The value of spinal decompression is difficult to communicate with everyone, one might assume that the audience share for decompression marketing to be small, when in reality marketing made for this type service, an alternative to surgery and pain medication, is suitable for all audiences.  While spinal decompression might not be a treatment needed by all ages, it is certainly a mindset and lifestyle all ages should be exposed too.

Wouldn’t life be grand if decompression could be marketed to the general audience just like they do in the movie theater?  Suitable for all ages, coming to a Chiropractic office near you! With all the bells and whistles of Hollywood film making.  An all star cast, great sound and just the right script to make the audience want to pull out their cell phones and make that appointment for a spinal decompression exam or at the very least make a note to check it out.   Because you know of course that the movie trailers are just the highlights of the movie, that’s what incites a reaction.  Those little teasers that make you yearn for more and create that desire to add that movie to your list of things to do.

It might interest some people to know that many actors, sports celebrities and politicians receive decompression therapy as well as those who you may not suspect, like your neighbor, your co-worker or maybe even your medical doctor.  If the latter is true, then shame on them for not sharing this with you.  But then maybe you should have noticed that your neighbor seems to not be bothered by that nagging sciatica pain anymore and your co-worker never got that back surgery that he talked about.

And maybe that’s exactly where decompression marketing should begin; no not in the movie theater, but in a normal discussion between two people, just as if they were discussing the movie they saw last weekend.  “And oh by the way; did I tell you that I won’t be having that back surgery after all?  I started seeing a chiropractor and I’ve been going in for decompression therapy.”   Yep, just like that, that’s how it should be done.

You bit the bullet and bought a spinal decompression table.  Good for you.  Good for your practice, even better for your patients.  You have cleared a space for your new table in your practice, a dedicated space just for your decompression treatments and now you’ve just learned that your table will be delivered within the next few days.  Training for yourself and your staff will be scheduled and a representative from the company will come out to your office for the training.  Once that is all said and done, you will be left with instruction manuals, help desk numbers and a decompression table.

So you and your staff are ready, the table is ready but are the patients?  Did you forget that you will need patients for this table?  Not just a few either.  Your goal should be to have that table filled non-stop for an infinite amount of time.   That is the goal, but the reality is that you might have let that little detail slip your mind.  It happens all too often.  It’s easy to do, I mean after all, the company is sending someone out to train you, and surely the training will include how to implement decompression marketing into your current marketing plan.

Unfortunately this is not the case.   If there are any tips and suggestions on marketing, it’s most likely outdated.

Your current marketing plan is working as far as getting patients in the door, but chiropractic marketing is not the same as decompression marketing.  There is a big difference.  One being that just about everyone can benefit from chiropractic adjustments.  There is not a long list of criteria to meet in order to be a chiropractic patient.  There is however a short list of criteria that a patient must meet in order to be a candidate for spinal decompression.  In fact this list of questions will be something your staff will go through with a patient when they call your office to make an appointment for their initial decompression visit.

Because decompression marketing is so specific you might find yourself scratching your head to figure out a marketing solution, and there’s the dilemma.  You’ve just spent a large sum of money on the table and now you have to find a way to market this service to the community so they will know about it.

But there is a solution, a very simple solution; beginning with your current customer base, send out an announcement about the latest and greatest service being offered in your practice.  Then turn your to your inactive list of patients.  These are little steps I know, but this will also give you and your staff time to work out the bugs and brush up on those phone scripts, exam and ROF protocols, billing and insurance questions and might I suggest that one of your staff members type up a procedure on how to place a patient on the decompression table along with belting and instrumentation instructions.   Then will you do begin to set those appointments for the decompression table, you and your staff will be more confident and this keeps everyone happy and comfortable.

If you’re trying your hand at chiropractic advertising without understanding the power of video, you’re missing out on an opportunity that few companies ever use but all businesses need. YouTube is not only the world’s mightiest video network, it’s also the second biggest search engine on the planet. It outranks Yahoo! and Bing rather easily and is only behind the undisputed number one, Google. It may seem strange to use video in chiropractic advertising because it is not always seen as a glamorous or ‘fun’ topic.

Keep It Fun

However, it is really up to you to decide what chiropractic advertising material to use. It doesn’t have to be a stoic and serious presentation. You can inject a bit of lunacy into the video to make it more enjoyable while you still deliver an important message about your practice. It’s easy to dismiss YouTube as a marketing tool because of the competition. One thing you’re forgetting is the fact that the vast majority of YouTube videos are rubbish! Few people know how to optimize their videos so a large percentage of uploads are never seen.

Use Links

Optimization on YouTube is not much different to making your website visible to search engines. You must always have links to and from the video. Have links to your website and any social media pages and vice versa. It’s also a good idea to drive some links to a landing page which you have customized.

Keywords

When using YouTube as part of your chiropractic marketing efforts, always have relevant keywords in the title of the video. This title is the first thing that search engines find so failing to optimize it is a major mistake. Clearly, you’ll need to have ‘chiropractic’ located somewhere in the title. As most users still add ‘video’ when they are looking for a video, keywords in the title significantly improve your chances of being seen.

Video Description

The description of your video is another glorious chiropractic advertising opportunity. This where you add the aforementioned links while including various relevant keywords. You need to give an accurate and concise description of the content at the same time so please bear this in mind. Keyword stuffing is foolish, futile and by using it, you will go the same way as websites that practice this black hat SEO method. It’s amazing how few videos properly use this option.

Tags

You also have the chance to add tags to the videos. Again, these tags need to contain relevant keywords. You should enter at least 5 tags but no more than 10.

Once you have used video as part of chiropractic advertising, there is no going back. Embrace the chance to be seen by millions and encourage people to share the video and comment on it. Allow comments but you do need to be quick off the mark to spot inflammatory remarks that are made by the puerile element who may stumble across your video. Remove nasty comments as soon as possible. You should also think about using your video as a response to other popular videos on the topic of chiropractic. Take advantage of the opportunity afforded to you by the success of someone else’s video.

Fans sit for hours watching their favorite sports teams go head to head in heated completion every weekend.  Regardless of the sport, it is guaranteed that there will be people sitting in stadium seats, bleachers, bar stools and recliners all over the world.

What is interesting to me is that baseball is the only sport that designates a specific time to stretch.  The  the middle of the seventh inning is a time allotted by baseball to stand  up, stretch, watch something on the jumbo-tron, listen to a person sing a song or watch foam clad people known as mascots run amuck on the baseball diamond.  The seventh inning stretch is a great time to run to the bathroom, grab some snacks and race back to your seat before the next batter steps up to the plate.

I suppose other sports allow for this time to move about, stretch your arms and legs and get the blood circulating throughout a sedentary body; however it’s never referred to as an actual stretching of the muscles.  I guess the point I’m trying to make is that when there is a significant break in the action, people never hesitate to jump up and move about.  Wonder why that is?  Maybe it’s the need to take that needed bathroom break; maybe it’s to feed a veracious appetite.  I’m more inclined to believe that it’s just a natural human response to sitting still too long.

I’m convinced the chiropractic profession has to be baffled by this phenomenon, specifically the chiropractors who offer spinal decompression therapy in their practices.   It seems the need to stretch suddenly ceases when a person is living with sciatica or low back pain.  It’s that excruciating pain that causes a person to not want to move; let alone stretch.  Ironically the reason a person has such severe pain in the lower back or suffers from sciatica can be contributed to years of sitting improperly.  We blame it on gravity, but truth be told it is more than that. Bad posture, lifting and twisting, sleeping on low quality mattresses, slips and falls, sports injuries, pregnancy (for women) and auto accidents are just some of the incidences that will contribute to a person’s low back pain. This results in pinched nerves, compressed nerve roots, sciatica and pain. In the past, when a person was diagnosed with a herniated disc, slipped disc or a disc compression; they were told they would need surgery or pain management therapy, which is a polite term for prescription drugs. But this is not always the case anymore, there are other options.  But many are never told about spinal decompression; that’s where decompression marketing comes in.

Chiropractors who have decompression tables in their offices, know there is a need for marketing this service to the public, they also know that spinal decompression marketing is more specific and its target audience isn’t as large as other markets, however the demographics on this type of marketing is broadening due to the baby boomer generation gracefully moving into their golden years.   Which is really perfect, because it those baby boomers who are gearing up for retirement don’t have time to be sitting around waiting for meds to work or recovering from surgery, they want to be active and free from pain.

 

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